All I want for Christmas
by Mosteyn
Summary: It's Christmas, 1925 and Tom and Sybil need to buy Christmas presents for their daughters.


**A/N:** I know I should be (and I am !) finishing of the latest chapter of A Life Well Lived, but I couldn't resist doing this for Christmas. It sort of came out of nowhere. So here it it !

Same universe as A Life Well Lived.

* * *

**Manchester, 1925, three weeks before Christmas.**

"Knocking off early, eh, Branson ?"

Jarndyce looked up from his copy and smirked, his tie hanging noose-like at his neck and a cigarette dangling between his fingers, the smoke curling languidly towards the ceiling.

Tom fingered the brim of his hat and took a deep breath before answering.

"I'm taking a half day. Mr Pickering agreed to it."

"Off to see your grand in-laws ?"

"No. My wife wants to go and buy the children's Christmas presents."

Jarndyce's smirk widened, shaking his head as he examined the ash forming a perilous column at the end of his cigarette. Jarndyce prided himself on his experience with women. Mostly he prided himself on never having been caught.

"Chirstmas shopping ! The little woman calls and you come running, eh ?"

"Lady Sybil is not a "little woman"."

Pickering's raised eyebrows were visible above his thick, round glasses, making him look like one of the sterner kinds of schoolmaster. He was unsure what irritated him most at the moment- Jarndyce's studied cynicism or Branson's perennial touchiness. Both his charges were promising young journalists in their own way, but they thought of themselves as very different people and had a habit of rubbing each other up the wrong way. An astute man, it amused him to see how similar they really were.

Jarndyce transferred his gaze from Tom to Pickering, challenging the rebuke.

"Branson did indeed ask for the afternoon off earlier this week. What he chooses to do with it is no concern of yours. Now I suggest you finish your copy if you want to see that article in print sometime this year."

Pickering looked up at Tom and dismissed him with a nod. Tom gratefully pulled his hat on his head and wound his way out of the newsroom before Jarndyce had the chance to say anything else.

* * *

Kendalls was only a few blocks away, but it was bitterly cold, so he pulled up the collar of his old brown overcoat and shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked briskly to meet his wife. He hated shopping, but this year, Niamh wanted a proper bicycle and Sybil wanted his help in choosing the right one. Corporation Street was bustling with shoppers, flowing in and out of the large department stores and smaller shops that the city had to offer. Yet despite the sea of people, he spotted Sybil easily by the entrance of the store, her scarlet nurse's cape a blaze of colour amongst the drab winter coats of the city's inhabitants. Her grey felt hat was rammed on her head, forcing her curls to frame her face as she watched out for him. She was looking in the other direction and he felt a childish delight in being able to surprise her. Just as he reached her, she turned round and her face broke into a smile.

"Oh good. Here you are !" She presented her cheek to be kissed.

"Have you been here long ?"

"I got the tram, so I was a bit early. It's cold out here – let's get inside."

She took his arm and they followed a stream of customers into the warmth of the store, making their way past glass cabinets of gloves and scarves to the rather grand mahogany doors of the lifts. A liveried attendant asked them what department they wanted.

"Toys are on the fourth floor, Madam," he said as he waved them into the lift.

The toy department in Kendalls was like nothing Tom had ever seen as a child, being several times the size of the local toy shop where he'd grown up and containing wonders out of his reach as a child. Every year his mother would take him and Kieran to see the fabulous Christmas windows at Clery's, where they would look wide eyed at the marvels on display. But he and his brother knew that the toys in the window belonged to another world and were not for the likes of them. Sybil had grown up in a nursery full of such delights and by Niamh's second Christmas, he had realized she wasn't about to be denied the pleasure of giving something of the same to her own children, however much it cost. It was a false economy, she'd reasoned, to buy cheap toys that their daughter would destroy within weeks. Tom argued that broken toys taught children to treat things with respect, but the way her face had fallen had made him feel like Scrooge. So here they were in Manchester's largest department store on a Wednesday afternoon, three weeks before Christmas, searching for Niamh's first bicycle and a doll's pram for little Aoife.

When they emerged from the lift, Sybil made a beeline for an array of sturdy minature girl's bicycles, ranged in a rainbow of colours and graduated in size. By the time he'd caught up with her she had already gravitated towards a small blue bicycle with a white leather seat and multicoloured streamers hanging from the ends of the handlebars. It had a big shiny bell and pristine miniature white tyres.

"Oh look ! Niamh would love this one !"

Tom removed the bicycle from its stand and squatted down to inspect it. The name of its manufacturer was proudly displayed in an elegant script along the tubing – Royal Sunbeam. Sybil's unerring eye for quality had pulled out one of the most expensive brands. It was well made, he had to admit, as he took hold of one of the pedals and turned it. The wheels spun round smoothly and quietly. He looked at the ticket – at 18 guineas, this little girl's bicycle was a month's wages for a working man.

"Is the right size, do you think ?"

He nodded.

"It is at the moment, but I'm not sure how long it will be before she grows out of it," he said. "It's a lovely bike, love, but don't you think something a bit cheaper would be more practical if she's going to need a new one in a few years ?"

Sybil looked at him anxiously.

"But then Aoife can have it."

"If Niamh has looked after it, which she won't. It'll be all battered and scratched by them. Aoife might want one of her own." Years of Kieran's hand-me-downs had made him curiously protective of his younger daughter's sensibilities when it came to possessions.

He watched his wife struggle to contain her disappointment. Even at the beginning of their marriage, Sybil had proved an able and practical manager of their home, marshaling their small finances with an efficiency that had surprised him, given she's had no experience of it. Her father's money had often kept them afloat in those early days when she found herself pregnant and he was struggling to find his feet in a new job. After the Guardian had hired him, it accrued in her account at the bank and was used for serious purchases and the very occasional impractical new frock or extravagant gift for her husband. But as the children grew, she found her heart constantly at war with her head when it came to her allowance. And at times like Christmas, her heart often took a beating.

"I suppose you're right," she said.

"What about this one ?"

He's pulled out a plainer red model, still smart and sturdy, but with practical black tyres and a plain brown saddle. It was almost half the price of the other one. Sybil tipped her head on one side, trying to give it a fair chance.

"I can jazz it up a bit," he said, inspecting the ends of the handlebars. "It would be easy enough to put some ribbons on and get a bell for it."

"How much is it ?"

"Twelve pounds."

Still more than some of people had to live on for a month. Sybil knew this. Only this morning she had admitted a man from Bolton who was the same age as Tom. He had lost three fingers in the mechanized loom in the mill where he worked. There would be no new bicycles for his children this year or the next, if ever.

"Is there nothing else suitable ?"

They looked at a few more, but discarded them as being too big, too heavy or one occasion, shoddily made according to Tom, returning in the end to the red one he had pulled out earlier. Sybil sighed, trailing her fingers lightly over the blue bicycle, as if saying a sorry farewell to it.

"Alright. I suppose we have to be sensible."

He gave her a small, apologetic smile. It was a victory he took no pleasure in if it left her disappointed. But she briskly put her disappointment to one side as she summoned a floor walker to take it to the till and turned her attention to Aoife's present.

A bewildering array of prams was artfully arranged in front of a large collection of dolls, whose baby-like features and stiff immobility made him think disturbingly of tiny corpses. Sybil seemed unconcerned by the little army of lifeless bodies and was busy comparing the various carriages on offer. The one she was hovering over was a handsome shiny black vehicle with silver coloured scrolling on the side and a black oilskin collapsible hood – very like the one he had seen Nanny wheeling George and Peter about in at Downton. Sybil extended a couple of fingers and gingerly rolled it back and forth. The carriage bounced a little; it was even sprung like the real thing. She equally gingerly looked at the price tag. Tom let out a low whistle.

"Seven guineas for a doll's pram !"

"Please ?" she pleaded.

"Don't you think it's a little big for her ?" he said, but he knew that with the compromise over the bicycle, this battle was already lost.

"She'll be able to reach, and she'll grow into it," she said confidently. "And the other ones aren't nearly as nice," she said, scanning the remaining stock. "Please, Tom, it's the first Christmas that she really understands what is going on. Niamh will have her bike, so I want her to have something special too. And you can fix it if she breaks it," she added confidently.

Tom raised an eyebrow, but was smiling underneath it.

"_When _she breaks it, you mean. She's a bit like a bull in a china shop, our little one."

Sybil couldn't deny the truth of this.

"We can always use some of Papa's ….."

"No. It's more than we wanted to pay, but we can afford it, if we don't go overboard with the rest of it. And she'll like it," he said, thinking of his daughter's face lighting up on Christmas Day. Beside him, Sybil beamed.

"Let's go and pay for it, then."

Another floor walker was summoned and Sybil accompanied him back to the till, making polite conversation as to how busy they were. She walked right past a train set that a ten year old Tom would have died for and the adult Tom would still like to have had a look at. He let Sybil go ahead whilst he picked up the engine, a perfect replica of the real thing, even down to the immaculate green and gold livery of the Great Western Railway . He couldn't help turning it over and peering underneath to marvel at the craftsmanship, smiling in appreciation at what he saw.

"Darling ?" Sybil had noticed his absence and had wandered back to him.

"Do you not think the girls would like a train set ?" he asked hopefully, "they like watching when George plays with his."

"I don't think they enjoy it half as much as their father and their Uncle Matthew do," smiled Sybil. "Not to mention that it's terribly expensive," she said, nodding at the ticket.

"It's an amazing piece of engineering," he said.

"Yes, darling," she said absently, turning back in the direction of the till. He put the engine back down on the track and sighed. Christmas was the only time of the year that made Tom wistful for a son. His daughters were little girls with lavish grandparents, so he was forever finding their detritus – odd doll's shoes, headbands, crayons, beads, stray miniature teacups - in the most unlikely places. Sybil was right – they would show a passing curiosity at George and Peter's trains and meccano, but they soon lost interest and returned to their books or the huge Downton dressing up box. George's shiny new bicycle was the first thing mechanical Niamh had shown any real interest in and Tom couldn't wait to teach her to ride her own.

At the till, he wrote a cheque whilst Sybil looked on, signing it in his neat script.

"Thomas Branson," she mused. "Whenever I see that, I always wonder who it is. When the priest called you Thomas at our wedding, I thought I was marrying the wrong person for a second."

He smiled.

"I don't like being called Thomas. It makes me think of Thomas Barrow."

"Oh, Thomas is alright, really. He hasn't had it easy."

"And I have ? Yet I didn't turn in an unpleasant, conniving little…." he asked.

"Tom," she remonstrated gently, "it's supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men, remember ? Now, let's go and have some tea."

* * *

By the time they were sat in the pleasant tea room of the department store, it was dark outside. Tom stared out of the window, watching a queue of people press forward into the warm glow of a homebound tram.

"Darling ?"

"Sorry ?"

"You seem miles away."

He sighed.

"I was just thinking. About what it was like I was a child. Sometimes I forget."

She gave him a reassuring smile.

"The whole world has changed since then. You've come a long way. _We've _come a long way." She paused, carefully replacing her teacup in its saucer.

"I wrote to Mama. I hope she isn't going to be too upset."

"I don't see why. We've spent more Christmases at Downton than anywhere else since Niamh was born."

Now it was Sybil's turn to look out of the wide windows at the roofs of the buildings opposite.

"She loves having us all together, though, especially at Christmas."

"But Edith's going this year, isn't she ?"

"Yes. So it would have been the first Christmas she would have had all three of us together since – oh - before we were married. But now the children are older, I just want to stay at home," she smiled, reaching across the table to take his hand.

He stared at their linked hands, idly letting his fingers rub hers.

"I would have thought with working, you would have liked the break."

"But I don't mind the extra work. It makes me feel…..oh, I don't know….that it's _my_ little family. I'm not a Crawley or a Branson – its just us – you, me and the girls. That doesn't make sense, does it ?"

He laughed.

"Yes, it does. Perfect sense."

"Speaking of the girls," she said, checking the watch hanging from her uniform and starting to gather her things, "Doris will have collected Niamh from school by now. We should think about going."

They squeezed into the lift and made their way to the great glass doors of the entrance and out into the street. The night had covered the city like a blanket, the stars obscured by the glow from a thousand bright windows and street lamps. She took his arm, but he moved her hand down to take it in his.

"Is there anywhere else you want to go ?" she asked him.

"No," he said, squeezing her hand. "Let's just go home."


End file.
